


Trapped In Vanessa's Manor

by Susumu



Series: The Many Adventures Of Kigurumi Kid [4]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Gen, Near Death, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Susumu/pseuds/Susumu
Summary: An alternate story arc continuing from Chapter 3 of Friends, In Another Time. What happens when Snatcher agrees to Vanessa's terms? Will K escape the manor alive, or will the two end up trapped for eternity?
Series: The Many Adventures Of Kigurumi Kid [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662427
Kudos: 3





	Trapped In Vanessa's Manor

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is an alternate continuation of an earlier work of mine! For this to make sense, make sure you've at least read up to chapter 3 of Friends, In Another Time first!

It was bad enough that Vanessa never wanted to let Snatcher escape this place, but for some reason, he also hated the idea of K being trapped here. He didn't even know why, he barely knew her. Perhaps it was because she was a child, and one who was still alive, but the thought of that made him angry. "There IS no place for her here, Vanessa!" Snatcher suddenly began shouting. "You know as well as I do that she'll die if she stays here! You know this and still you're willing to let an innocent person die to get what you want? You caused quite enough suffering all those years ago!"

The room got deadly silent for several moments. Vanessa was enraged at this point. Eventually, though, she started to give some sort of response. It started quiet at first, but she slowly started to break into maniacal laughter. K found herself dragged closer to Vanessa's face again, and the air started to get much colder than it already was- Or maybe it was K who was getting colder. Vanessa finally spoke once more, this time to K. "You will never come between me and my prince again."

And that was when Snatcher stepped in. K would have been frozen solid in a matter of seconds if he hadn't done something. "Vanessa!" he shouted again. "Look, just leave the kid alone, okay?" Vanessa didn't seem to be listening to him, however. She must have been too filled with rage at this point. "...Alright, fine. You win. I'll... I'll stay here. Just please, don't hurt her any more than you already have."

Vanessa gasped when she heard those words. Her prince... She shouldn't have ever doubted him! She quickly dropped K to the floor, rushing towards Snatcher as fast as she could. "I knew you loved me after all, my prince!"

Snatcher, however, completely ignored Vanessa and dodged away from her arms, scooping up K off the ground instead. He had to get K away from HER, as soon as possible. Without even saying a word to Vanessa, he quickly carried K out of the room. Vanessa simply stared at the doorway in disbelief, beginning to feel burning rage building up inside her. How... How DARE he play with her emotions like that?! This was all that little red-haired RODENT'S fault. She knew she had to get rid of her somehow. But how could she without Snatcher knowing? If she just froze the kid and left it at that it would be too obvious. For the time being she just had to come up with something different. She stalked off towards the kitchen in silence. She was planning to prepare something rather... Special for this child.

Meanwhile, Snatcher had gotten K to some other room in the manor. He wasn't sure where, but could he really be expected to remember this place? He was more worried about K now, anyway. He carried her over to the nearest chair and carefully placed her in it. He could see a closet in the corner of the room. There had to be some blankets or something inside, didn't there? As he threw open the doors of closet, he found what he was looking for right away. He quickly dragged out the biggest blanket he could find, and carried them over to the girl on the chair. He threw the blanket over the arm of the chair and gently picked her up, flinching as he did so. Peck, her skin felt like ice! ...No, he shouldn't think like that! He placed the blanket over the chair, then placed K on top of it, wrapping the blanket around her carefully as he did so. With that, he'd done all he could do for now. All that was left was to wait. He curled himself up on the carpet, making sure to keep an eye on the girl. Was this going to be enough?

K didn't move from the chair for hours, and Snatcher was starting to feel tired just from waiting. He carefully pulled himself up off the ground and made his way over to the chair. As he got closer, though, he noticed some sort of movement under the blanket. It was small at first, but soon K sat up quickly. She had no idea where she was or what had happened. "Waaah!" She woke up with a scream, kicking all the blankets away.

Out of impulse, Snatcher picked up the girl to comfort her as soon as he heard her scream. "Kid, kid, it's alright," he said softly. "It's over now. You hear me? It's all over now."

Being picked up by Snatcher was bad enough, but hearing those words weren't exactly comforting. "What?!" She demanded. "What does that mean?!"

Okay, that wasn't the best idea. He carefully put her back down in the chair. "I meant you're safe now, kid," he explained. "Trust me, you weren't the only one who thought you weren't going to make it. It's a good thing I got you away from her so quickly."

K looked around. "Huh...?" It looked like they were still in the manor. "But... What are we still doing here? I thought we were trying to get out of here."

Snatcher looked downward slightly. "Listen, kid. I... Had to say some stuff I didn't mean," he admitted. "Not to you, I mean. To Vanessa. It's nothing you need to worry about, though. I'm still going to get us out of here, I promise! I just need to-"

He stopped that train of thought when he heard shuffling outside the door. Peck! Had SHE heard everything he just said?! How was he going to explain this?! Before he could think of anything, however, the door suddenly... Opened much more gently than he was expecting it to. Vanessa stepped inside, carrying with her... A tray? With a tea set and a plate of cookies? What was this all about? K didn't see all of this, though. She was too busy burying her face in terror. This was it, wasn't it? Vanessa was going to kill her for sure this time. Vanessa placed the tray down on the table and picked K up off of the chair...

And scooped her into a hug. Wait, what?! What was she doing?! K didn't like this, and tried to get away from her. Even a hug from Vanessa didn't feel warm at all. She felt like she was going to get frozen again just being near her. Vanessa spoke directly to K, in a voice that was just so dripping with sweetness it would make anyone sick. "Dear child, why are you trying to run? I only want to apologize for how horribly I treated you."

Vanessa... Apologizing? As far back as Snatcher could remember, Vanessa had never apologized for ANY of her actions- In fact, it was more common for her to make others apologize to her. He found this as creepy as K did. "A-alright, Vanessa, just put her down," he said. "You're scaring the kid."

"Oh, of course, dear child," Vanessa responded, carefully placing K on the chair and giving her a gentle pat on the head. "I was... Hoping that I could make things up to you, child." She turned back to the table and picked up the teacup she had brought out, then picked up the plate of cookies and gave them both to K. "I made these for you. I hope that you will... Enjoy them."

K looked at the cup and plate she had been given. Was she... Really supposed to eat this? She had a feeling that she shouldn't, though. Like... Vanessa had done something to them or something. Snatcher noticed K's uncomfortable expression and spoke up. "Actually, Vanessa. Some tea does sound like it would be nice. Why don't you go get some more cups so we can have some too?"

"O-of course, my prince!" Vanessa answered quite suddenly. "I apologize! This will only take a moment." With that she shuffled back out the door.

Once Snatcher was certain Vanessa was far enough away from the room, he turned back to K. "I wouldn't drink that if I were you, kid," he said. "Vanessa was being weird. Let me see that cup for a second." K handed over the teacup. It looked absolutely tiny in his hand, but he was still able to inspect it closely. The tea didn't seem to look unusual in any way. As much as he didn't want to do this, he gently held the cup to his mouth to drink some.

Right from the first taste, he knew something was wrong. Tea was meant to be slightly bitter, but not THIS much so! On top of that, Vanessa seemed to have dumped a ton of sugar into it to hide the taste of whatever "extra ingredient" she had added. This was the worst thing he'd ever tasted! K could tell something was wrong by his face. "A-are you okay?!"

Snatcher slammed the cup down on the table again. "That's... That's not tea, kid," he said. "I don't know what she put in there, but I'm pretty sure it'd kill you if you drank it. I knew she was planning something. She probably thought that if she poisoned you I wouldn't know it was her."

Poison?! K knew Vanessa was acting weird! All that stuff she had brought her... It was all to trick her! But... "Snatcher, you drank all that stuff," she said. "Does that mean you're..."

Snatcher shook his head. "Kid, I've been dead for centuries," he answered. "Gonna take more than a little poison to hurt me. But Vanessa and I... WE are going to have to have a talk."

At that moment, Vanessa came back into the room, carrying two absolutely tiny teacups in her claws. "I've returned, my Prince," she called out. "Now let's... All spend a little time together." The tone in Vanessa's voice changed when she saw K still standing there. How was she not dead? If she had drank that tea, she should at least be dying right now.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Vanessa," Snatcher replied. "Actually, it's about time the kid went to bed." He then scooped K up into his arms. "And you and I have something we need to talk about." He then carried K out of the room, just trying to get her away from Vanessa for the time being. He didn't trust her not to harm K while he had his back turned. Once the two were out of the room, he placed K on the floor. "Wait here for a bit, kid. I'm going to go tell Vanessa what I thought of her little trick." With that, he went back into the room, closing the door behind him.

While Snatcher was "talking" to Vanessa, K decided to look around a bit. She felt no need to stick around and listen in. The first thing that K noticed was that the manor was surprisingly clean for a house that had been here for centuries. K had always had a bit of a problem with dust, but she couldn't find even a tiny bit around here. Vanessa must have kept this place super clean, but why? She was the only one who lived here... Wasn't she?

She then walked over to what looked like a painting on the wall. Or at least she THOUGHT it was a painting. It looked all torn up... Like something had been clawing at it. From what K could make out, the painting showed a woman in a green dress, standing next to a man in a red coat. She couldn't make out their faces, but they seemed... Happy? The man looked weirdly familiar to K... Had she seen him somewhere before? She'd have to ask Snatcher about it when she saw him again.

Snatcher! As K was staring at the painting, she heard the door open behind her. She turned around expecting to see Snatcher coming out of the room... But instead, she froze as she saw the massive figure of Vanessa stepping through the doorway. She thought she would just walk right past her, until Vanessa's heads suddenly snapped to face her. SHe couldn't help but scream when this happened, and the two just... Stood there facing each other for a moment. Neither K nor Vanessa said or did anything at all. They simply stared into each other's eyes until Vanessa moved on to another room. K was about to relax and move on with what she was doing, when suddenly Vanessa slammed the door behind her quite loudly, sending K scurrying down the hall.

There was a reason Vanessa hadn't said anything to K, of course. Not because she genuinely had nothing to say. In fact, quite the opposite. She had been angry before, and even enraged. But never in all her life had she felt so angry she couldn't even speak, until now. Her prince was angry at HER! If that horrid child hadn't come into the picture this wouldn't have happened! She thought it would be much easier to get rid of her than this, but apparently not with Snatcher hovering over her at all times. She'd just have to try a different approach. She'd have to find a time when K would be alone. But how was she going to do that? For now, her first step was to seal off every possible escape route for the two. She had to make sure that basement door was blocked first...


End file.
